The week in security: Crims get creative as cybersecurity named the biggest risk to nations, SMEs

Cybersecurity has hit the agenda so quickly that it is now a “paramount national security risk”, one futurist warned even as French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron weathered an email hack on the eve of the country’s election.

China is attempting to address the basics by using regular security checks on IT vendors that are designed to identify vulnerable Internet and networking services early on. They’d be wary of compromises such as a sneaky Gmail phishing attack, which incorporates a fake Google Docs app.

That’s a problem given the reliance on cloud-based applications that, a Google executive said, can ease the burden of data protection compliance. Indeed, online platforms require particular vigilance as many warn that a phishing attack or ransomware infection may just be a lead indicator of a broader extortion or fraud attempt.

Search engine Shodan took a new approach to botnet management, launching a service that enables security researchers and law enforcement officers to look for malware command-and-control servers. It’s a notable step forward that could help improve the response to new malware families.

New technologies were causing other problems, too: India’s Supreme Court, for one, was hearing a challenge to a biometric authentication system that forces the use of biometrics identifiers when filing tax returns. These sorts of real-world problems are just some of the many challenges facing innovative security startups, who need to hedge their bets carefully to maximise their chances of survival.

Cyber resilience will be particularly important as Australian organisations face increased pressure to quickly detect, respond to, and manage the repercussions of breaches in the wake of 2018’s Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme.

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